Ghost Streets of Los Angeles - <AUTHOR> http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2015/12/ghost-streets-of-los-angeles.html <comment><USER2> These are all ex-railroad tracks.

I wish this documentary was available for streaming somewhere but if you're into this stuff it's an amazing documentary and I can highly recommend it.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiLGui8fxiw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiLGui8fxiw)

It has some bonus materials as well including going around with a P.E. history buff as he points out some of these places.

<comment><USER3> Why would a country like the US with plenty of money get rid of train tracks when other countries are building or upgrading theirs? It seems like a really strange thing to do when you have a large metropolitan area which clearly has a need for mass transit?

<comment><USER2> The documentary mentioned 2 things.

1\. The trains never made a profit past 1929 (the great depression). I'm not sure if they said why.

2\. The train companies had made deals to maintain the roads. As cars got more popular that made maintenance too expensive and provided an incentive to switch to buses which would transfer maintenance of the roads to the city.

Of course I agree that it was shortsighted of the city to let the trains go. They probably should have run them themselves or made some new deals or something. Now they're paying billions to build new lines and they take forever to build. The purple line that goes down Wilshire is supposed to take until 2035! to be finished down to UCLA :(

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Line_Extension](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Line_Extension)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Trains. There's similar scars in San Francisco. Potrero Hill & Mission District particularly.

<comment><USER5> There's a site where you can see this really clearly, [http://www.historicaerials.com/](http://www.historicaerials.com/) ... it's a pretty bad site but the only one I know that actually presents the data in this way.

The first image: [http://historicaerials.com:?layer=T1963&zoom=16&lat=34.09750...](http://historicaerials.com:?layer=T1963&zoom=16&lat=34.09750190321817&lon=-118.35163593292235) ... if you go to the compare drop-down, select slide, then do 2012, you can clearly see this.

<comment><USER6> Were you aware that Google Earth has a "History" icon that opens a slider for historic aerial data? It's pretty fantastic.

One of my pasttimes is to compare different map sources/times for the same location.

I wrote a python2 tool that parses any URL like the one you gave, and outputs links to the geo location at many map providers:

[https://github.com/jamessanford/geourl](https://github.com/jamessanford/geourl)

<comment><USER4> Well now I have to explorer SF in 3D in 1938. This might take a while.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For me this article contained a Ghost Address: the Ogden Drive swimming pool highlighted in the article is located just a few buildings south of a place I lived for four months in 2007. It was only four months because I unexpectedly applied to and was accepted by Y Combinator, and thus had to move to the Bay Area on short notice. Nevertheless, I walked past that building dozens of times—never seeing the oddly shaped pool, never knowing I was walking past a ghost.

</comment><comment><USER8> The Bay Area too, if you know where to look [http://imgur.com/4kBUHie](http://imgur.com/4kBUHie)

Next stop Monte Vista!

<comment><USER9> That is because foothill expressway was a railroad line until the early 1960s(?). You can still see the old train station in downtown los altos (it's now a high end French bakery).

<comment><USER8> San Jose also has a crapload of abandoned industrial trackage, some of which has gone to BART, some completely abandoned, some trails, and a very small amount still in use. Once you know what to look for, the scars of rail ROWs are everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Former railroad tracks. Duh.

Land ownership often reflects where railroad tracks were. When the tracks are removed, that doesn't mean that the land becomes part of the neighboring lots.

</comment><comment><USER11> Another in SF, heading southwest for several blocks from the intersection of Harrison/22nd in the Mission

2901 22nd St San Francisco CA</comment>


Show HN: I made an API for your Raspberry PI (see, it rhymes) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/victorqribeiro/rpiapi <comment><AUTHOR> I've added a serial endpoint in order to communicate with an Arduíno and read some sensors.</comment>


The Theresa Duncan CD-ROMs (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://archive.rhizome.org/theresa-duncan-cdroms/#section-1 <comment><USER2> I worked at Magnet Interactive Studios starting during the Chop Suey days, and into the early days of professional web site development. It was a privilege to work with such an incredible group of creative and talented people. Those were amazing days.

<comment> john-tells-all hi Dave!

I remember the Quality Assurance guys _loved_ testing new Chop Suey releases, they'd all gather around and point and laugh and had a great time. I'm glad the games are remembered with love :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That David Sedaris narrated "Chop Suey" is enough to spark my interest. The original ISO an 180MB download from archive.org[1].

The circumstances of Theresa Duncan's death (presumed suicide at 40 y/o) and the death of her partner Jeremy Blake[2] are chilling, and really saddening.

[1] [https://archive.org/details/chop-suey- win31](https://archive.org/details/chop-suey-win31)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresa_Duncan#Death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresa_Duncan#Death)

</comment><comment><USER4> I had never heard of these games. Very interesting to see them. The early CD- Rom stuff is a fascinating footnote in the development of multimedia.

</comment><comment><USER5> What? No love for The Magic School Bus and the early Dreamworks' Goosebumps games?

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow. Don't click this link. A very loud child's voice blare out of your speakers. Annoying as hell. Woke my dog.

<comment><USER7> She says "Hey, what's the rumpus?" at a fairly normal volume.

You should reconfigure your browser to forbid autoplaying sound if this sort of thing is a problem to you.

<comment><USER6> My volume was way down; this was strident and unwelcome. I'm unaware that autoplaying is turned on in my browser. Hm.

Ok it was, fixed. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Dear HN: Help Me Get To Startup School - <AUTHOR>

I'm a broke college student(University of Michigan) who got into Startup School and I really want to go. I will build your company or individual landing page, put in 40 hours of marketing(social media, emails, whatever else), bizdev (creating decks or comprehensive excel tools), write multiple blog posts, basically anything that will make me $400(~roundtrip from DTW to SFO) or 3.5 Bitcoins so I can go to startup school. I have 5 days to respond to the invite and would love any and all help I can get. Thanks in advance!
Email is email@example.com and other contact info is available on my HN profile.
If you are feeling extra generous, here is my Bitcoin address: 1DWDmXbRmcjooFDomwbhKm9Kz2aHiEjJXh <comment><USER2> Suggestion: post a Bitcoin address; there are be people here who don't need 40 hours of marketing work but can donate a small sum to help crowdfund your trip. If you don't have one get one right now. See [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Address](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Address).

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't think of that but just added it to my post...thanks so much!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey, recent U of M grad here. Go talk to the Center for Entrepreneurship in the Duderstadt. Tell them what's up and you might get a grant.

Shoot me an email at jmbirnho at umich . edu and tell me how it goes.</comment>


How Gmail happened: The inside story, as revealed by creator Paul Buchheit - <AUTHOR> https://www.techinasia.com/gmail-happened-story <comment><USER2> > Livingston: Which was your favorite feature?

>

> Buchheit: That's hard to pin down. Actually one of the things that we added > very early on, which at this point seems pretty obvious, but it turned out > to be really nice, is the autocomplete when you type in the email addresses. > Once you have it, it just seems so obvious. "Why wouldn't you have > autocomplete?"

This is amazing and speaks to how much for granted we take features/discoveries/inventions after they become ingrained in our lines. I can't imagine a world where i have to remember the email addresses, and he's right it seems so simple of a feature. But I guarantee at the time people were questioning whether it's worth the time to build it out.

</comment><comment><USER3> Labels are fine, but I want a built-in "Quick Links" for one-click switching between my favorite searches. "is:unread in:inbox" <=> in:inbox <=> etc

Edit: formerly in Labs, then killed. Still not a native feature?

[https://www.cdgi.com/2017/09/mikes-technical-tip-goodbye- gma...](https://www.cdgi.com/2017/09/mikes-technical-tip-goodbye-gmails-quick- links/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Completely off-topic: I bookmarked this link to be cached for offline reading. I was greeted by a blank page with gray blocks instead of text. Why would anyone make a single-entry page load the content via AJAX? Whyy???

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm a happy user. But two things stand out to me as symptomatic of the "we know better than you" aspects. The first is labels. Exposed in IMAP as if Folders but not folders. Also you can't add more to the steerage bar subtypes of inbox. Also all and spam and unread are magic. This works but gee.. special case? What happened to architecture for generic cases and specialisation afterward?

And then other? ! Keyboard shortcut marks to spam. Even if the current context is the spam label. Why isn't it a toggle? Why can't I unmark spam with the same effective shortcut which contextually makes sense. There is no unspam shortcut, presumably because reasons. (There's a button and generic steerage can get it keyboard only)

Tl;dr he did amazingly good but there are still some moments of whatthefuckery and wheknowbetterthanyou

<comment><USER6> "The first is labels. Exposed in IMAP as if Folders but not folders."

Are you suggesting that:

A) Gmail shouldn't include a label feature?

B) Labels shouldn't be exposed via IMAP?

C) Something else?

I'm hoping it's C (as I like labels, like them being exposed via IMAP, and don't know how else they could have exposed them such that the IMAP clients of the day would have supported them).

<comment><USER5> I think maybe google should have gone into IMAP standards to explain labels and make them more generally useful. Sieve?

<comment><USER6> In 2010, my primary phone was a Nokia E71. It supported both IMAP and Exchange ActiveSync. IIRC, whichever way was used to access Gmail, labels were usable.

If the Gmail team had gone the way you suggest, I'm not sure that phone would _ever_ have been able to access Gmail labels.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple's fix for corrupt binaries - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/2012/07/06/apple-repushes-corrupt-binaries <comment><USER2> Good on Apple for fixing this quickly. Even the best team can let a bug like this slip through, and the best solution is a fast response. However, I'm confused by the blog post implying that the solution to unbricking the apps was somehow novel or praiseworthy. This is pretty much textbook for an auto- update system. You just bump the revision to force an application update; there shouldn't be any need to reinstall or muck with the data files. I'd honestly have been shocked if they hadn't been able to handle it just the way they did (which would have been noteworthy, but not in a good way).

<comment><USER3> _However, I'm confused by the blog post implying that the solution to unbricking the apps was somehow novel or praiseworthy._

In the 4 years of the App Store we've never seen a distribution problem of this magnitude (it would be an absolute nightmare for any devs affected) and we really have no idea how Apple would respond to such a problem.

We've also never seen Apple unilaterally update a specific group of apps like this. Many App Store devs likely didn't think Apple would or could take such action, and those of us familiar with what it takes for a device to accept and install new bits are now wondering just how this is being done.

Are they manually bumping each affected app's version string? Is there there some hidden field that forces a device to reinstall the same version of an app? It's curious.

<comment><USER4> My theory: there's a version number that devs set on an app, and there's another version (say an integer starting from zero) that Apple puts on apps. They bumped their version, leaving app's version intact.

<comment><USER5> I'd say that's a good theory, and if they baked it in from the beginning, it's a great solution to this sort of problem.

The fact that Apple is so strict about monotonically increasing dotted numbers for version strings led many of us to believe that they were being parsed for important things inside the App Store publishing platform.

But maybe they are just part of the UI. Apple is known to have strong opinions and strict adherence requirements about that, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anybody have any insight on how a process like this is debugged at Apple? I've heard, for example, that at Amazon there is a process of blame-finding after a major issue/outage like this, whereas at Google I hear things are more post-mortem let's fix the process that led the human error involved in the outage, rather than blame the person who made the faulty commit.

Anybody know how things work inside Apple's culture?

<comment><USER7> This is Apple culture at its best: No one ever talks about it. All employees are so loyal to this company that you can't even imagine one speaking about such insights.

<comment><USER8> >All employees are so loyal to this company that you can't even imagine one speaking about such insights.

I think it is more of fear about losing their job rather than loyalty. It is not uncommon to find that any leak will be tracked down and the leaker summarily fired.

<comment><USER9> Fear of what, getting fired? Is it hard for Internet-scale application engineers to get a job in the Valley these days?

Is it really so hard to imagine that employees at Apple feel loyalty to the company? Employee loyalty is not an uncommon thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone know what the actual problem ever was?

<comment><USER11> There was an error with the FairPlay DRM signing process that lead to a lot of app binaries becoming corrupt; people would go to download updates from the app store, and after doing so would be completely unable to launch the app. Not even a splash screen or a display of the freeze-dried screenshot from multitasking. Half a second of black, then kicked back out to Springboard.

Marco did a really good job of cataloging it because Instapaper was one of the affected applications: <http://www.marco.org/2012/07/04/app-store-corrupt- binaries>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> How did they fix/change the version string, or did they? I don't see how simply re-released a previously released version would cause affected users to update their binaries.

What am I missing?

</comment><comment><USER13> This snafu, the Galaxy Nexus thing and the fact that the simple update to my highly rated and heavily used iOS app has been "waiting for review" for ten days made me start Android Dev. Sorry Apple. You took too long. Hire more reviewers already.

</comment><comment><USER14> Can somebody please provide some context for this?

<comment><USER15> <http://www.marco.org/2012/07/04/app-store-corrupt-binaries>

<comment><USER14> Thanks! That sounds bad, glad I'm not an iOS developer

<comment><USER4> Come on... Shit happens. And it was the first glitch in the App Store after 5 years of operations! They've sold 30 billion apps (and updated probably well over 200 billion).

:D

<comment><USER16> The first glitch? You're kidding, right?

<comment><USER4> Well, many, many things suck about the App Store and the submitting process, but they are not _that_ important. This one really ruined a lot of people's holiday, tons and tons of angry and 1-star reviews and if I'm not mistaken, people lost local data. If it was a little more widespread, it could've been a real fiasco.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Discover and search for accounts across multiple Mastodon instances - <AUTHOR> https://search.noc.social/ <comment><AUTHOR> Recently joined the decentralized social network and struggled to find people to engage and follow.

Since there is no centralization, could not find a easy way to search for accounts.

Built this little tool for myself mostly, but sharing as I think can be useful to others.

Feedback is more than welcome.

</comment><comment><USER2> One of the biggest shortcomings, besides audience, is discoverability. If there was a way for all instances to consume that search content and make it easily accessible inside your instance that'd be awesome.</comment>


Ask HN: Did bit torrent really become popular by releasing porn? - <AUTHOR>

I thought I once read an article to that affect, but I can't find the article on Google. (Get all these links for torrents to porn, but not articles documenting how bit torrent started out).<p>If so, are there other technologies that also become popular through the ease of distributing porn? <comment><USER2> Bram Cohen did test BitTorrent in the very early days by seeding some porn, but I wouldn't attribute BitTorrent's success to that.</comment>


Watch the First Trailer for HBO's New Silicon Valley Comedy - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/watch-the-first-trailer-for-hbos-new-silicon-valley-co-1529546949

<comment><USER2> Looks promising. I'll give it a chance, though regardless of the genre, I think this might be one of the more difficult times in television history to breakout with a new hit.

</comment><comment><USER3> Man I hope this is as good as the trailer looks. Martin Starr is a perfect pull for this role, I think.</comment>


Server rendered applications with sprinkles of JavaScript still works well today - <AUTHOR> https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/server-side-templates-vs-rest-api-and-javascript-front-end <comment><USER2> Starting with the "Heavy JS Front-End" premise feels a bit leading.

I just rewrote a huge old server side Perl app in JS and it really wasn't that different in terms of real work required to build the app and there are some real benefits with going that route.

</comment><comment> ix-hispana SSR is fairly common nowadays.

<comment><USER2> Common nowadays as in "back in style" maybe, but that's never reached a point of being uncommon, has it?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should an RSA public exponent be prime? - <AUTHOR> I've done some research and found conflicting answers.. should an RSA public exponent (used in GPG etc) be prime? Is there a security risk in using non-prime numbers? <comment><USER2> 1\. Technical answer: an RSA public exponent needs to be coprime with the modulus, which is not the same as requiring that it be prime.

2\. Pragmatic answer: prime numbers are generally coprime with the modulus, and so they're an easy answer, and so RSA public exponents tend to be prime.

3\. Best-practice answer: just use 65537, in all cases. The other popular answer is 3, which is mathematically fine, but leaves less room for implementation error; there are some implementation flaws for which attacks are untenable with e=65537.

4\. Long-term answer: don't use RSA. RSA is well on its way to obsolescence. Most problems you'd ever want to solve with RSA are better solved with Curve25519 (for DH) and Ed25519 (for signing). Not coincidentally, these are the algorithms implemented by Nacl, the only crypto library you should consider using.

5\. Scolding answer: if you have to ask, please don't try to implement any of this yourself. It is _very_ difficult to get RSA right.

<comment><USER3> I think e needs to be coprime with phi(N) rather than N itself. This is so you can find d = e^-1 mod phi(N), which would otherwise not exist.

Of course, if e shares a factor with N, you have bigger problems.

<comment><USER2> Oh, duh. Of course. :)</comment></comment></comment>


Indonesia restricts WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram usage following deadly riots - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/22/indonesia-restricts-whatsapp-and-instagram/ <comment><AUTHOR> web.telegram.org is also blocked since 30 minutes ago. Unsurprising given that they blocked all access to Telegram in 2017. [1]

[1] [https://mashable.com/2017/07/17/telegram-blocked- indonesia/](https://mashable.com/2017/07/17/telegram-blocked-indonesia/)</comment>


Facebook's Local Deal Platform: Starbucks Already Advertising Against It - <AUTHOR> http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2010/11/03/starbucks-facebook-places-offer/

<comment><USER2> Shouldn't that headline really say "alongside" instead of "against"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup =)</comment></comment>


Work Online? My Insight Into Setting An Hourly Rate - <AUTHOR> http://www.sofamoolah.com/blogging/work-online-my-insight-into-setting-an-hourly-rate/

<comment><USER2> It's pretty simple actually. Evey time you are overwhelmed with work, rise the rate. If you don't have enough work for a prolonged amount of time, lower it.</comment>


Avo: Better X86 Assembly Generation from Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mmcloughlin/avo#readme <comment><USER2> I really wish Go (really, Plan 9) hadn't made their own assembly syntax. The fact that we have AT&T syntax to deal with instead of just using Intel's syntax is bad enough.

I understand the rationale—that you can use the assembly syntax as a sort of IR by unifying the syntax of certain basic operations across different ISAs—but that's properly considered a low-level IR, not assembly. (It's also a pretty bad form of IR for doing any interesting optimizations, which is why Go uses a separate SSA form for that.)

<comment><USER3> Author of avo here. While I did really enjoy working on this project, I still fully agree with you.

Go (Plan 9) syntax is not sufficiently different to make it a powerful intermediate representation, hence SSA as you point out. In fact many of the differences are frustrating subtle changes in instruction mnemonics or operand order. This might be okay if there was a canonical instruction database that made all these differences from Intel and AT&T easy to discover. However these exceptions are really recorded in various parts of the golang.org/x/arch/x86 repo. Producing the instruction database for avo was quite a time-consuming process. See:

[https://github.com/mmcloughlin/avo/blob/master/internal/load...](https://github.com/mmcloughlin/avo/blob/master/internal/load/load.go) [https://github.com/mmcloughlin/avo/issues/23](https://github.com/mmcloughlin/avo/issues/23)

I've gained a lot more familiarity with the assembler and supporting infrastructure, so I'm hoping I may be able to contribute to this area of the core Go project.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, AT&T syntax has much of the same issues of poor documentation. In particular, operand order is easy to remember for 2-operand instructions: it's reversed in AT&T. But now with SSE and AVX we have 3- or 4-operand instructions, and the AT&T versions sometimes put the operands in (2, 1, 3), sometimes in (3, 2, 1), etc. There's no documentation for this aside from GCC as far as I can tell. :(

<comment><USER3> Yes! This tripped me up at one point. My comment says "Otherwise we could be in the bizarre special-case of 3-argument CMP instructions."

[https://github.com/mmcloughlin/avo/blob/0e253b3753beb409b3dd...](https://github.com/mmcloughlin/avo/blob/0e253b3753beb409b3dd8028fc81f5fa4b96aaee/internal/opcodescsv/analysis.go#L84)

It gets to the point where the only source of truth is the Go assembler itself. My test suite takes the avo instruction database and generates a massive assembly file with one line per instruction form, then passes this to `go tool asm`.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a nice project :-)

Any chance of ARM/ARM64 support?

It would be super useful if you could generate the code to memory then execute it directly.

<comment><USER5> I believe this assembly is golangs assembly, which is ISA neutral

<comment><USER3> Only a small number of instructions in Go assembly are architecture neutral.

avo currently implements the x86 subset of Go assembler. It's definitely possible to add support for additional architectures, but it may be a fairly significant project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A similar concept for python: [https://github.com/Maratyszcza/PeachPy](https://github.com/Maratyszcza/PeachPy)

<comment><USER3> avo author here. Yes PeachPy was the inspiration for this, as well as asmjit. Both mentioned in the credits:

[https://github.com/mmcloughlin/avo#credits](https://github.com/mmcloughlin/avo#credits)

PeachPy actually has Go output already, and Damian Gryski has used this to great effect:

[https://github.com/mmcloughlin/avo/issues/40](https://github.com/mmcloughlin/avo/issues/40)

Unfortunately because PeachPy wasn't initially written with Go in mind there are some rough edges and Go features it simply doesn't support. avo hopes to fill this gap for Go programmers.

<comment><USER6> Ah - peach -> avocado, I see that now.

<comment><USER3> Haha yes! PeachPy was written at Georgia Tech and avo was written in California.

<comment><USER7> We actually had Marat come to the Go meetup in Atlanta when he was finishing up his PHD at GT. He had done some preliminary work on SIMD. It was a small meetup ( I think only ~6-7 in attendance) and went over many folks heads, since a lot of people were focused on breaking up Ruby monoliths into Go. SIMD would have been nice, but really we were still reveling in the benefits of getting the hell out of ruby for high-throughput networked services. [https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MYg8PyhEf0oIvZ9YU2pa...](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MYg8PyhEf0oIvZ9YU2panNkVXsKt5UQBl_vGEaCeB1k/edit?usp=sharing)

<comment><USER3> Oh cool, thanks for sharing that talk. I might try to submit an avo talk to a meetup, if anyone will have me :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Really dope - excited to see this project come out!</comment>


Show HN: SuperSimpleCallRecorder – Record calls without signing up for anything - <AUTHOR> So this is an embarrassingly simple Twilio app, but since I found it useful myself and couldn't find something analogous, I figured I would share: http://lippytak.github.io/supersimplecallrecorder/
Basically we forward your call to the destination number, record it, then text you the recording URL after you hang-up.
Personally I'm using it to record user research calls but one can imagine other use-cases. There are many more obvious features/polish to add, which I'll consider if folks are interested. Let me know! <comment><USER2> Are you also storing these phone calls?</comment>


E-learning app blocks Facebook until kids do math - <AUTHOR> http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/1015/breaking48.html Irish tech startup Aftermath has developed an app that uses time on social networks as a reward for completing math questions.  Carrot and stick.<p>http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/1015/breaking48.html <comment><AUTHOR> It could be indeed. Every time you try to access Facebook.com, twitter.com or Hacker News, you'd be redirected to a web-based IDE and asked to code. For every line of code completed, you'd earn 1 minute of play time.

</comment><comment><USER2> Interesting and innovative concept. The concept could be used in workplace environment also.</comment>


Show HN: Bringing back IRC, built in three days on a bus from SF to Austin - <AUTHOR> http://ghostpost.io

<comment><USER2> I fail to see the application for this. The chat looks like a bunch of children posting "dirty words" and laughing behind their random aliases. Not to mention the spamming and general lack of moderation. Please, stop this. You're killing IRC.

<comment><USER3> I fail to see how that is different than IRC.

<comment><USER4> Depends on the channels you participate in. I tend to stick to the *dev channels, which have always leaned towards civil discussion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hey all - I'm Blake, one of the devs on the team. We met each other & built this in three days. We missed IRC's concepts of group anonymity and self- expression, wanted to bring it to the mobile generation.

It's built with JS + Firebase.

Social networks are crap. People don't speak freely, care way too much about their brand & self promotion. So, we wanted a quick simple way to have brandless, anonymous communication.

Feel free to ask us questions in this thread!

</comment><comment><USER6> Currently there is too much wasted space.I see 6 messages on my puny 1366x768 screen.

</comment><comment><USER7> I didn't totally buy the innovation of it at first either, but I think beyond a fun social platform, I think it offers a really interesting platform for generating "real" discussions or feedback. For example, a company could use something like this to host a Q&A with management, or for a focus group, etc. In other words, I could see this replacing some of the application for Survey Monkey by having an interactive yet still anonymous way for people to have a frank discussion. Who knows, maybe parents and teachers could talk with their kids, even! :)

</comment><comment><USER8> What is this, why does it need to exist, and how is it related to IRC at all?

<comment><USER5> Hey Fauntleroy - I'm one of the devs on the bus, trying not to get carsick while responding to all of these posts!

We want to bring the fun of anonymous IRC group chat to the next generation. It might not seem fun to you, but do you use SnapChat or GroupMe?

I guarantee it will take more than three days to perfect, but thanks for your comments! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can see how this would be useful inside a large development team where junior devs might be too embarrassed to ask a 'dumb' question, without feeling inferior to the "rock stars". (This could be useful for other Communities of Practice where N00Bs are intimidated/too-scared to participate in serious discussion).

I'd possibly use this to replace Campfire, with a toggle for Anon/Identified posts.

</comment><comment><USER10> Check out Gnotty if you're interested in actual IRC with a responsive mobile interface:

<https://github.com/stephenmcd/gnotty>

</comment><comment><USER11> >Bringing back IRC

I wasn't aware it had gone anywhere.

<comment><USER5> We're bringing back the fun of it. I practically grew up in IRC rooms, and miss the anonymous-ish freedom of expression it provided.

We want ghostpost to be the mobile generation's IRC. Fun, anonymous, topical chat.

<comment><USER12> So Omegle for groups?</comment></comment></comment>


How to Stick with Good Habits Even When Your Willpower Is Gone - <AUTHOR> http://jamesclear.com/choice-architecture

<comment><USER2> One of the best pieces of advice I know of regarding diet, involves simply never bringing unhealthy foods into the home. Stop buying it, stop keeping it available in your space. That change significantly increases the effort required to eat unhealthy. Persistent environmental temptation is just setting yourself up for eventual failure, it's an absurd form of self-sabotage.

</comment><comment><USER3> nice one indeed !!!</comment>


RIM to cut 40% of workforce as another top exec resigns - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/05/28/rim_to_cut_40_of_workforce_as_another_top_exec_resigns.html <comment><USER2> As a sidenote, all the cheering and celebration that goes on in the techpress when a company dies is somewhat disgusting. I don't understand why a large section of tech industry wants RIM or Nokia etc to fail. I would rather them see them succeed, see them build something cool and have more and fun things to play with.

edit: I think we can safely conclude that hackers are about as human and as fallible as any other group. We have our own fashions and our own tabloids.

<comment><USER3> Except these layoffs are not what killed the company.

The company has been dead for a while, reality is just slow to adjust.

Do not think of it as a company dieing but rather thousands of brilliant souls being released from enslavement.

<comment><USER4> Having worked for a large "dead, but didn't know it yet" company in the past: Yup. In the later layoffs, when they had run out of dead wood and were cutting into great, productive workers, it was entirely unclear who the lucky people were. I heard of people getting axed on a thursday who were working at a new place the next week, with higher pay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wish they weren't failing. I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if thousands of Waterloo grads suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly looking for a job, somewhat cooling down the Canadian developer job market.

<comment><USER6> Engineers gone through a round of lay-off already. This time is all non- engineers.

<comment><USER7> Classic. "Who should we fire _first_? Oh, I know! The people who develop the only products we sell, that's who!"

<comment><USER8> Obviously sarcasm, but in reality this is not crazy. For RIM's problem is they don't know _what_ to build, not that they are incapable of shipping _something_. Burning cash having engineers build the wrong thing is not obviously any more correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Every single one of these articles has provided no sources for these layoff figures. Sure, many of the C-Level's and SVP's have been leaving their Waterloo coop, but isn't it expected when the company has recently suffered under the current management? Surely RIM still needs it's employees to support BB7 (with devices still being launched globally [1]), while also building BB10 their next-gen OS.

Sure, their might be another round of layoffs. But almost half the company? Doubt it.

[1] [http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/blackberry- curve-9320-...](http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/blackberry- curve-9320-price-features-review/1/184873.html)

<comment><USER10> Seems very feasible if they are positioning themselves to be acquired. With 40% of your workforce gone you no longer have a business, you just have a bunch of assets. I would be surprised if they are still and independent, publicly traded company by the end of 2012.

Unfortunate, they had a lot of smart people working for them, but the dual-ceo structure ensured they would never be decisive enough to take big risks on innovation.

<comment><USER11> >> With 40% of your workforce gone you no longer have a business, you just have a bunch of assets.

Some people might argue you have 40% less assets. ( But I get where you're coming from.. )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I find it ironic that a company called Research In Motion is going backwards as a company rather than forwards. People seem to be championing the fall of RIM and although it is their fault for being an arrogant player in the enterprise sector, it's sad to see them fail like this. While they're not dead yet, it is probably bound to happen eventually unless RIM is taken in a new direction by a CEO with balls to be a leader and not a follower trying to mimic the success of Apple's iPhone like everyone seems to be doing.

I also find it disturbing that tech outlets like Apple Insider, TechCrunch and a few other majors are basically cheering that RIM is the way it is, it's sort of disgusting to see so many supposed experts in the technology journalist field so happy to see a company like RIM fail. Arrogance aside, RIM still make great products, they just need to adapt to the changing market a bit better, ask people what they want.

<comment><USER6> "What I find ironic is that analysts who are sitting in this room will criticize this company while typing out that criticism on a BlackBerry," one shareholder said to laughs from the audience, "And I think that that's the most self-serving, most despicable activity on this planet," he said.

Read more: [http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Canadians+follow+take+p...](http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Canadians+follow+take+pity+local+hero/5160396/story.html#ixzz1wEUxicWF)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> While I don't use any RIM products personally, the Canadian in me wants to see them turn around this slump and be innovative again.

<comment><USER14> I think there is room for three great smartphone platforms and I hope Windows Phone isn't one of them. So I'm rooting for RIM.

<comment><USER15> What's actually wrong with Windows Phone other than it came from MS? From what I've seen of it, its a well designed well executed mobile OS. You can't really say the same of the recent blackberry os releases.

<comment><USER14> Because that's just one more smartphone OS that will never support app development from anything other than their own creator's platform, i.e. Windows and Visual Studio or Mac OS X and Xcode. The world doesn't need this horrible, closed-system, innovation killing, walled gardens crap anymore.

<comment><USER15> That's a totally fair point. Sadly I think iOS' success just compels other manufacturers to follow suit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Well, people are too quick to jump on any stories blasting RIM nowadays. We should rename HN to "Questionable Hacker Rumors".

For one, it is a rumor. Apple Insider isn't exactly known for well placed sources inside RIM.

Second, even if we were to take this at face value, read the text: "The layoffs will affect the company's legal, marketing, sales, operations, and human resources divisions, a source said." Not that engineering isn't mentioned. That is a good cutting of cruft.

<comment><USER16> This may go against what lots of tech. people like to think (it's certainly a much sexier idea to think of a good company as one run by and only employing hackers), but just for the record there are people in many departments, including legal, marketing, sales, operations and HR, who are both talented and useful at companies.

The fact that RIM clearly has a lot of cruft to cut doesn't mean that a.) that cruft is all, or even mostly, outside their technical staff or that b.) of the non-technical cruft, those getting fired are part of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I mean, "research" is in your name and I ask you what innovative research and development have you done lately?

R.I.P. R.I.M.

<comment><USER18> I don't think they lack in research, or at least spending on research. I think the main thing they lack is a culture of innovation. They sat on their laurels as the market leader and they avoided cannibalizing any of their revenue streams.

<comment><USER19> That's a good point. Many companies are either too unfocused with their research, so whatever they are researching is almost completely irrelevant to their business, or even if they do invent something innovative, it's the managers who don't give the invention any chance for fear they might disrupt their current businesses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It went from a rumor of around 2000 workers a few days ago to around 6500.

</comment><comment><USER21> That's what happens when your research is no longer in motion.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is really sad. Their dev tools were really horrible though and they weren't able to come out from their nice of mail and messaging which other smartphones started doing as well if not better leading to a BYOD(Bring your own device) culture at the workplace. Who wants to carry two phones and keep them charged?

On the bright side, they're still making money with a steady and increasing BIS revenue stream, BBM is getting popular in Europe and Asia and BB10 is on the horizon, I doubt it can save them unless BB10 is leaps and bounds better than the rivals. They have improved the user experience and the dev tools, but remember what happened to Palm with their excellent WebOS, it's really hard to sell phones because of network effects and few available apps(chicken and egg problem).

<comment><USER18> I looked at doing BB development when it was it's prime. It was too expensive to get into and the cost of a BB enterprise server was prohibitive for a amall shop.

<comment><USER23> It's been a while since I've looked into it, but last I looked, all the required tools were free/open-source, and the only requirement to be a BlackBerry developer is/was a $20 signing key.

<comment><USER24> I believe signing keys are now free.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Asshole Factory - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/bad-words/the-asshole-factory-71ff808d887c

<comment><USER2> _She's jacked into a headset that literally barks algorithmic, programmed "orders" at her, parroting her own "performance" back to her, telling her how she compares with quotas calculated…down to the second…for all the hundreds of items in the store…which recites "influence and manipulation techniques" to her_

This sounds waaay too much like Manna to be real. If it is real that's just insane. What company is the author talking about?

 _The economy doesn't make stuff anymore. That much you know. So what does it make?_

Except this is not true at all and the U.S. is the fourth largest manufacturer worldwide [1]. I think what people are trying to say is: "The average America does not work in manufacturing anymore" \- which would be more accurate [2].

[1][http://www.nam.org/Newsroom/Facts-About- Manufacturing/](http://www.nam.org/Newsroom/Facts-About-Manufacturing/)

[2][http://www.epi.org/publication/the-manufacturing- footprint-a...](http://www.epi.org/publication/the-manufacturing-footprint- and-the-importance-of-u-s-manufacturing-jobs/)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for turning me onto Manna, it was a very thought-provoking read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well written, albeit aggressive, piece. Reads more like an art form than an exposé. Consider how different the message would be if it included the name of the corporation. I actually find it poetic that the piece is meaningful without the name. For all we know this job could not exist, but perhaps what is so utterly frightening is the fact that it _could_ exist. Mara may not exist, at least in this exaggerated form, but her story captures an alarmingly modern parable. Does this "psychological warfare" have moral bounds constraining it outside retail, or will it eventually seep into every day life? Has it already?

</comment><comment><USER5> failed to mention the college major of the genius friend?

</comment><comment><USER6> [http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

</comment><comment><USER7> Can't this guy make a point without sweeping generalizations?

Also, do we need so much swearing... think of the children?

</comment><comment><USER8> There is nothing new about abuse or folks becoming assholes or bad work situations.

Although I do agree the American workplace has a high degree of dysfunction and is not nearly what it could be.

<comment><USER4> The only abuse in this story is between Mara and her own mindset. She is _willing_ to work at a place like this after she gets both her degrees. She priced herself out of a better economy when she chose to apply to retail jobs.

The problem is that propaganda preaches employment and jobs. People feel pressured to get a job, and therefore desperate for _any_ job. This irrational self-deprecation artificially increases supply in the entry-level labor market, pushing down the price of labor.

As retail becomes automated, employees become overqualified. Literally, "anyone could do that." If anyone can build widgets, then widget factories can hire anyone. If a factory can hire anyone, then it only needs to match the lowest price demanded by a potential employee.

It's a cycle. Automation displaces jobs, employees become overqualified, most do not have savings to sustain long job search, so they become desperate, apply for underqualified job, lower price of job itself.

The bottom rung of the employment ladder is like those blocks you need to jump on in old Mario games. You know, the ones that move up and down, you need to jump on them at the right place, and then jump off them at the right time to get to the next platform. You're not supposed to stay on the bottom rung. You're supposed to get on it, then jump off it.

The focus of entry-level employment should be on career-development and opportunity expansion. As an employer, recognize that no employee wants to stay in entry-level forever. How can you help your employees expand their set of opportunities?

<comment><USER9> "She is willing to work.." What the heck are you talking about? She needs to pay her rent and eat. Once you get into a hamster wheel of minimum-wage supposed-to-be-only-temporary job, it is VERY hard to look for a better job. It is a real problem everywhere, but even more so in the US, where college education cost is insane and adds to the pressure of taking ANY job.</comment></comment></comment>


Not a Black Chair: racism, sexism, and discrimination at Squarespace - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@amelielamont/not-a-black-chair-8a8e7e2b9140#.ib8gvqlpu <comment><USER2> So the "black chair" stuff is inexcusable, but regarding the end:

> No matter who you are,

> You deserve to feel loved and appreciated.

> You deserve to be valued.

> You deserve to feel free.

> You deserve the chance to shine.

Actually, you don't. You might "deserve" these from your parents, but in the workplace, these all need to be _earned_.

It's also really not the company's problem if you get panic attacks at the thought of running into the ex-boyfriend that _you_ slapped -- even if you worked at the same company.

<comment><USER3> >It's also really not the company's problem if you get panic attacks...

because of the way the company completely destroyed your sense of self-worth and promoted a toxic culture of abuse?

Actually, it might be. I wish it was. Maybe we'd value each other a bit more.

<comment><USER4> Saying your company is at fault for how _you_ feel is the exact same reasoning as "You made me do it", ie, not assuming any agency at all. Same thing with "toxic culture of abuse."

People who are being sexually trafficked and child soldiers are in a toxic culture of abuse that they can't escape from. We're talking about an adult with a lower management job at a tech company, not the wretched of the earth.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure I understand your reasoning here. If a child is bullied by her classmates, your reasoning would suggest that her negative feelings are her fault and not her tormentors? Sure, she might not be locked up in a medieval dungeon (a literal place she can't escape from), in fact, I suppose she can switch schools... Are you saying the student should be tougher or not provoke her classmates or...

<comment><USER4> You're comparing a child to an adult as if they're the same. That's a pretty leaky abstraction and somewhat disturbing if you can't see the critical distinction.

This is the kind of self-indulgent thinking that tries certain (usually poor or minority) 12 year olds as adults, while treating certain (usually wealthy and white) adults as children who should be forgiven for "youthful indiscretions." Similarly, it focuses on the comparatively well-off but unhappy while completely effacing the experiences of the genuinely exploited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there any evidence of discrimination in this story? While it's certainly tragic, I think it's very hard to separate what is sexist (or, aside from the one comment, racist) from what is just people being generally terrible. It seemed only implicit that the author's gender or race had anything to do with her treatment at work.

Or maybe I'm missing something. How was this discrimination?

<comment><USER7> "aside from the one comment"

"How was this discrimination?"

You mean, aside from the discrimination, how was this discrimination?

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure how commenting on the colour of a person's skin is discrimination. Perhaps unwise to say someone "blends in with the chair", but I don't think it was racism and more than saying "when I was driving I didn't see you because you were wearing a dark jacket and it was dark outside".

The issue is that Amelie interpreted the comment as "you're black, and therefore you're worthless/invisible". That's not an unreasonable assumption. The main problem IMO seems to be that Kelly is a bit of an asshole/bitch, with zero empathy. Any reasonable person either would have thought twice about making that comment, or would have apologised and explained that she didn't mean that.

It just looks like a typical company with dysfunctional management/HR rather than any kind of discrimination.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Squarespace really sounds like a nightmare, and also very rough on people who work a support/call center role rather than a dev role. I say this having experience with both, as only the call center involved handling tickets as a primary activity, and having a regular night shift (rather than being on-call every few months).

On the other hand, this sounds pretty grandiose to the point of being delusional:

"Squarespace, you hoped I'd be another black woman in the tech industry who would quietly watch as you grow in power while I wither away. You are mistaken."

Squarespace: a company actively dedicated to the withering of black women in tech. That's a pretty extraordinary claim, so it needs some pretty extraordinary (ie, non-anecdotal, verifiable) evidence. The adjectives used to describe literally every other person in the story are mostly if not completely negative, and this ultimately weakens the writer's claims.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a cautionary tale on why it is so often a bad idea to start a relationship with someone at work. In addition to that, though, it really shows how terrible management was (maybe still is?) at Squarespace. I would not want to work there based on what I've read here.

</comment><comment><USER10> I only read up until "September 2013" but (except for the one comment about the chair) it seems like just bureaucracy and office politics.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is one area where having an MBA is beneficial to working in startup - basic management training at least.

Too many nightmare stories of bad management incidents out there. This one, for example, should have been dealt with a lot sooner.

We could say that we're only seeing one side of the story here, and that the manager in question has a completely different version of events.

But the point is that the manager is responsible for the entire situation, and is given the authority over it in order to prevent bad outcomes like this. If an employee walks away with a bad impression and a story like this to tell then that in itself is a management failure.

</comment><comment><USER12> having left a job after three months with a verbally abusive boss, i have to commend you for being career minded and staying so long. Looking for a job now, I'm wondering where there is a significantly different dynamic. We have a long way to go in this industry, like many others.

<comment> guard-of-terra "i have to commend you for being career minded and staying so long"

I don't. People who don't leave encourage abusive bosses.

When large part of your team quits, it will be a painful but efficient lesson. When they don't, it sends a signal that wrong behavior is okay.

That's same as not reporting rapes or turning blind eye on "inconvenient" crime. It really really encourages crime in my opinion.

<comment><USER13> I had an awful boss. K was easily the most obnoxious person whose presence I've ever had to tolerate. Besides incompetence, he was eventually fired after he was ordered by the cto to give me a good review and a raise in my annual review; he gave me neither. When he was fired (and there's a long and funny story here involving property destruction), he assaulted a coworker, was removed by the police, and given a restraining order. He was delusional enough that he called the ceo late that night and suggested that, upon receipt of a written apology, he'd consider returning to work.

There's some amazing detail in the court documents from his 5 years of multiple lawsuits against our former employer, including him assaulting the videographer at a deposition and being removed by the police. Again.

I didn't leave because I was worried I'd never get another job and no one would believe me. After all, what are you supposed to do in an interview when asked why you're leaving after 3 or 4 months? Do you really want to tell a potential employer you're leaving because your boss is verbally abusive and slapped the back of your head because he thought you were being stupid? I worried -- and I think it's true -- that I could easily be written off as whiny or entitled or difficult or even just too much trouble to deal with. I also had just left school and couldn't really afford to repay the relocation bonus they gave me (protip: always write into your contact that repayment is prorated over the first year of employment. And remember relo bonuses are taxed when you decide how much to ask for. oops on both counts.)

It's hard.

Now I'm mature enough, and have a string of successful jobs behind me plus savings, that I can joke about it. And if anyone doubts what working with him was like, pull out the description of the deposition that lead to him being declared a vexatious litigant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hm, what's going on with this article? There are stories with fewer points that have been around longer and are on the front page while this one is dropping like a rock...

Get it together, HN...

<comment><USER9> Maybe people are getting tired of being told what to get angry about.

<comment><USER15> That's the problem isn't it? Some people are forced to repeatedly ask for the basic human decency and empathy that others receive as a matter of course. Then those being asked get 'tired' because they are convinced they treat everyone equally and are totally objective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Unbelievable. This parallels to my experience working for a local startup long time ago. The amount of abuse people, the bullying, useless HR seems to be a pretty common theme in an industry without a union.

I still don't get why people who would benefit most from a union would be against it. The explanations are usually self serving but a union is protection for the collective. Classic divide and conquer strategy by employers.

<comment><USER17> Why? Because many of us have experience with the bad side of unions and we don't want to see programming become anything like that.

You'll end up with mountains of regulations and specialties and not be allowed do anything outside of those bounds. Imagine being told "you're a front end programmer. You are not allowed to submit code for the back end, that is for certified backend programmers only. Also you are not allowed to edit CSS or HTML. That is for certified web designers only" Why? Because that threatens the backend guys and web designers jobs). Check out some union rules sometime and look at all the crap. I don't want any part of that to come to programming

<comment><USER7> There are some problems that a union can solve which seem to be unsolvable otherwise, such as age discrimination, which is rampant in private sector tech but not so much in public sector tech (surprise).</comment></comment></comment>


What is soundness in static analysis? (2017) - <AUTHOR> http://www.pl-enthusiast.net/2017/10/23/what-is-soundness-in-static-analysis/ <comment><USER2> While "soundness" and "completeness" are well-defined properties of deductive systems, using such formal methods for analysis of real-world systems requires their formalisation. However, the formalisation of any real-world system will inherently introduce abstraction/assumptions. The question really is about which assumptions one should make when formalising software.

For example, when reasoning about software, one often abstracts from hardware details like battery-backed memory that will presist through a crash. There are also many "reasonable" assumptions at software-level, like `malloc` never failing, that many verifiers make in order to give more helpful results than "functional correctness is not guaranteed when using malloc".

The discussed paper is especially interesting for practitioners, as it tries to state all the assumptions made in the design of DR.CHECKER's static analysis. While this results in abstracting from certain realisable behaviours, e.g. "it treats each entry point independently" and misses state- dependent bugs, stating these assumptions helps with judging/estimating the quality of the results.

The paper's authors present a static analysis whose reasoning is sound w.r.t. stated assumptions. This is what they call "soundy". The actual post/article raises the important issue that it would be helpful to define what a sound static analysis of software is, that is agree on the assumptions/abstractions made. However, picking a "reasonable" set of assumptions for a "sufficiently sound" static analysis is admittedly a difficult task, and of course not provided (yet).

It seems to me that finding a common set of assumptions is less of an issue for competitive software model checkers though, as the benchmarks used in the competition on software verification (SV-COMP) implicitly prescribe which aspects have to be modelled "properly". Couldn't a similar competition for static analysis give rise to a set of common assumptions for static analysis, too?

</comment><comment><USER3> The concept of "soundiness" as defined in the article (fake soundness) is useless for code with security implications. Attackers are not statistical noise.

<comment><USER4> Taking a ratio of bugs found/total bugs is pretty meaningless, but it's still useful to have analysis that finds the majority of buffer overflows or data races.</comment></comment>


Minimalistic reminder tool written in go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/daubaris/Rem <comment><AUTHOR> Aimed for people spending a lot of their time in CLI and having a lot of important tasks to do. Wrote it for myself but maybe someone else can find it useful also.</comment>


Ask YC: Primer on DNS? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking to move a few projects from shared hosting to VPS...and I can't get a straight answer out of my host as to what to expect as far as downtime with setting up nameservers and pointing my domains to them.
As far as I can tell, I'm supposed to set up my new nameservers and aim the relevant domains to these new nameservers.
What I don't get is what happens next.
The name servers have to propigate?  And this can take 6-24 hours?  Then the domain redirection has to propigate and this too can take 6-24 hours?
Is there any way to know when this propigation has happened?  It seems like I'll be flying blind and possible incurring up to 48 hours of downtime on these sites in order to get them working on the new nameservers.  Is this normal?  Seems awfully inefficient and mysterious.  I don't like the idea of passively waiting around with all my sites down while some mysterious process happens "across the internet".
Can anyone clear this up?  (I realize this is elementary stuff for this forum, but perhaps helpful for some?) <comment><USER2> Yeah, DNS is a bitch.

Best approach would be to host your DNS completely outside of your hosting company. This provides a certain level of resiliency.

Changing just about anything with DNS can take 6-24+ hours to be fully reflected on the Intartubes.

Just in summary, the DNS flow looks something like this:

Client asks DNS server what IP is www.foo.com DNS Server has no idea (it could be in cache, but this is worst-case). DNS Server looks up the root name server for foo.com and sees that NS1.BAR.COM is the nameserver for foo.com. DNS server finds glue record for NS1.BAR.COM and finds that it has IP address 126.96.36.199 DNS asks 22.214.171.124 what IP is www.foo.com DNS Caches answer based on TTL in response AND/OR sometimes its own settings to override too-low default TTLs DNS Server tells Client PC www.foo.com == 184.108.40.206

Moving your domain from being handled by NS1.BAR.COM to NS1.BAZ.COM can take 6-12 hours to take effect, and then another 6-24 hours for most other servers to expire their caches.

Changing www.foo.com to move from 10.10.10.10 to 10.12.13.14 takes effect immediately on the nameserver (NS1...), but various other servers along the way (often including the client PC) will have cached the old information, and may not go out to see if the IP has changed for some period of time.

All in all, a "seemless" DNS move takes about 1 week end to end and goes through a few iterations in the middle.

I personally would probably setup a new server _somewhere_ with HAProxy setup to shoot connections back to my "old" server. Then make nameserver changes to move DNS someplace better (this step might be able to be eliminated). Stage site on new server. Change DNS to send traffic to haproxy IP. Set haproxy to push traffic to new site. If things work as expected, set DNS to reflect IP of new server, and watch haproxy logs to see when traffic stops coming in (3-5 days typically).

The reason for the haproxy bit is that you can "steer" the traffic at will and immediately, no propagation changes. Many people have gotten burned on a new site/server where something doesn't work and DNS changes aren't immediate, so you're stuck with all these hits that can't be fulfilled.

Sorry if my answer is non-readable... I'm writing this while on a conference call :)

I can help you more if you want, email in my profile...

</comment><comment><USER3> You can hold downtime to a few minutes for a good chunk of your traffic.

How can you speed up the time it takes for DNS to propagate? Set your TTL low now, before you the move. (Set it to about 300 seconds.) This means that many DNS servers will query your DNS box every 5 minutes, rather than waiting for a day or two.

You cannot know when propogation is "officially complete" as DNS servers around the world may not respect your TTL and serve old results for a long bit.

What you can do is put up a blanket webpage at the old host saying, "Hey folks, we are moving hosts. If you want to visit the new site click here..." and you can use the new IP address if you have your host configured properly.

If you don't "have" nameservers, you'll want to find a company like dnsmadeeasy.com that can do this for you. Many hosts will do this though. Slicehost, a VPS, has a DNS tab in their admin area. Find out if they can do this for you.

So the steps:

1) Get your new site set up. (Use step 5 liberally to test if it is working correctly without doing any switching yet.)

2) If your VPS does DNS, set up your records. If not, get one like DNSMadeEasy.com and set up your records. Remember to set the TTL to 300 seconds. BUT set the records to point to the IP address of your OLD host.

3) Go to your domain registrar like GoDaddy and change the nameserver to whatever DNS site you used in step 2. They will TELL you the names to enter, it'll be like: ns1.namehost.com, ns2.namehost.com.

4) Give it a couple days for the switchover.

5) Ok, it's the day to switch. First update your hosts file on your PC, to do a last minute test of your new site before the switch. (Add the domain and the new IP address, just google to see how this is done. This allows you to test in advance of the move.)

5) Now switch the A records from your old host to your new host. Tail the log file. You should see traffic in a few minutes.

6) Put up a webpage on the old host pointing to the new host.

<comment><USER4> I had written up a long comment about what to do, but this more or less nails it. Here's what I had to say from a more DNS centric perspective:

You can do this with no downtime if you don't have any other outside circumstances forcing your hand, such as your current web hosting expiring very soon.

Hint: find a web based DNS test tool. Google "DNS Report", the dnsstuff.com one used to be really nice but they got too ambitious with a bunch of crap on their site and I think it's a pay service now, the dnscolos.com one looks like it's pretty good, I can't tell about the checkdns.net one. Also if you'll be running your own DNS services (as opposed to outsourcing them where someone else maintains the hosts) you'll want to find a DNS server package that has good documentation and good tutorials. My personal bias is toward BIND to get things going right away and then migrate to something else (PowerDNS, maybe) after you get it working because BIND is very, um, featureful, and needs updated a lot. :)

As you've determined, DNS servers are like web servers for static content in that you can have two different sets of them running that think they're the owners of the domain. If you give your new servers data identical to the old ones, it won't matter which set is serving your records, as the client will end up with the same data.

There is a notion, as you've probably read by now, of a TTL, or Time-To-Live. This is a number that goes along side your DNS response and tells the computer that your record will be staying the same for the next X seconds, so it doesn't have to ask again. Managing this in all of the records is crucial to a smooth migration.

You need to know the TTL of your current records. It sounds like you have a UNIXy machine at your disposal in the VPS. Log in and execute:

dig -t NS google.com

You will see a bunch of goop, but you really only care about:

;; ANSWER SECTION: google.com. 345600 IN NS ns4.google.com. ...

The 345600 is the number of seconds that the current name servers can be cached out on the internet. You won't be able to cleanly move your services faster than that if you don't control your current nameservers.

dig google.com @ns4.google.com

;; ANSWER SECTION: google.com. 300 IN A 126.96.36.199 ...

if you care about your email you're going to need to track your MX records as well, using:

dig -t MX google.com @ns4.google.com

wherein you will see:

;; ANSWER SECTION: google.com. 10800 IN MX 10 smtp4.google.com. ...

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: smtp1.google.com. 3600 IN A 126.96.36.199

Again, in all of these answers field #2 (300, 10800, 3600) are the number of seconds that each record type (A, MX, A for smtp) are cacheable by servers across the internet. You will control these on your new server.

You will want to set the TTL of your A (and MX) records very low on your new server. 300 seconds would be a 5 minute migration from site to site.

Once you have your DNS servers properly set up (dig example.com @new.srvr.ip.addr) update your information with your registrar, giving them your new name servers as the only nameservers for the account. Then the NS TTL countdown begins. In our google test case you'd have four days before you could move the site cleanly. I'm not sure if all registrars push updates hourly or not -- it used to be that they only did it once daily. I'd wait NS TTL + 24 hours to be safe, if you have the time.

Once everyone is visiting your new name servers, you now can migrate your non- DNS servers. All you need to do is properly update the IP addresses, which can include incrementing the zone serial numbers if you're using a BIND-alike. After updating the A (and MX) IPs you have their old TTL seconds to wait before the migration is complete and everyone should be viewing things on your new servers.

After your migration is complete you can (at your option) turn your TTLs back up so that the load is reduced on your DNS servers. It's not really critical to do this, but it can carry you through if your DNS servers ever have a short network connectivity outage.

Good luck.

I've glossed over a bunch of stuff (some root NS stuff, DNS is badly implemented in a lot of places, some things don't honor TTLs, and so on) but these steps should be enough to do an upgrade in the common case with no problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You should not need to endure any downtime, even though DNS changes can take days to propagate. The trick is to get DNS working at your new host BEFORE you point your domains at the new host's servers. This way any given person will be hitting the new server or the old server, but it won't matter -- both should be serving the same information.

Other suggestions in this thread, such as reducing the TTL beforehand, will help drastically if any issues arise.

</comment><comment><USER6> I assume you're using your shared host's DNS servers and that a move to a VPS also requires a DNS move. If it's possible to keep the same nameservers it's just a matter of changing the record and everything will work right away.

Switching nameservers is what takes a long time.

It can take 24 hours, but it's usually much faster. There have been times that I've seen the change take place in just a few minutes, but that only means that the nameservers I'm using have picked up the change. Other nameservers may take longer. The result is that you're not dealing with a total outtage. Some users will get pointed to the new location while others will get pointed to the old one.

You obviously want to do this when you expect usage to be at it's lowest and it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a message on the old site letting users know what's going on.

Also, as long as you're moving it's probably worth looking into a more permanent DNS solution so that you don't need to switch nameservers again next time you switch hosts.

<comment><USER7> If you know you need to make to your network, you can set TTLs to be lower, several days in advance. Problem solved.

(It's true that some crappy DNS resolvers don't honor TTLs, so you'll need to retain control of old servers for at least several days afterwards, to set up some automagic forwarding, receive mail from senders who haven't caught up with new MX records, etc. But none of this should be too difficult.)

<comment><USER2> True, but if you have a reasonably popular site SOMEONE has always broken DNS TTL's along the way. I've been through this more times than I can count... If your site is still small/early, it's less of an issue.

<comment><USER7> Right. So, like I said, you need to control the old servers for at least a few days after the cutoff date.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> DNS and BIND, Third Edition By Paul Albitz, Cricket Liu Third Edition Pages: 499 ISBN 10: 1-56592-512-2 | ISBN 13: 9781565925120

<comment><USER9> Or <http://cr.yp.to/djbdns.html> \--- no book required, and you avoid a really spotty security track record.

DJBDNS will hurt a bit if you're not Unix-y, but it will hurt less than managing zone files if you're not BIND-y. No sequence numbers, TTLs, or cryptic "IN A blah blah terminating period" syntax.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Uhm... Lots of good suggestions here. Given the innomence of your question, I'll take the liberty of assuming you won't take offense to me questioning some of the more fundamental assumptions. Why do you need to host your own DNS? Honestly, it's a real pain. And if you're asking questions like this, you probably don't need anything fancy. The control panels at the major registrars are pretty advanced these days.

Apologies if you're a DNS rockstar, no offense intended.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely NOT hosting my own DNS. I've got my domains registered at invisiondomains.com and am hosting someplace else. Over at invisiondomains, I set up the nameservers and aimed my domains at the new nameservers. My initial post was an attempt to find out if the downtime I was experiencing was normal or just my host and registrar giving me a line. Not it seems that what I'm seeing is normal for someone who doesn't take some of these more intricate measures beforehand. All of this is really useful info. Like I said, I was looking for a primer - to know if I should call bullshit on my host and registrar or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I just did this recently. I reduced the TTL a few days before the move and I also set up Apache on the old server to proxy all requests to the new server. Look up Reverse Proxy for Apache. I turned that on when I changed the IP addresses in the DNS records. So there was no downtime. I left this up for a week and then shut it down. Worked great. Note: This site doesn't use SSL. That would make it a little more complicated.

</comment><comment><USER9> Honestly, the "high end" DNS hosting services cost ~$15/mo. If you DIY, during setup you're going to incur many times more than that in time and effort costs, and you'll do it again every time you need to move DNS. If I were you, I'd just use a good hosting service with a web interface.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ok. So I'm not crazy. It's incredibly helpful to know that 2 days of downtime doesn't mean my host is a lemon per se and that I should reconcile myself to some serious downtime over the weekend (which is the best time to be down for me).</comment>


Multifunctional Graphene Hair Dye (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2451929418300822 <comment><USER2> Wasn't there some discussion that graphene is somewhat like asbestos? Is this safe?

Edit: [https://www.materialstoday.com/carbon/articles/s136970211270...](https://www.materialstoday.com/carbon/articles/s1369702112701013/)

Unknown, possibly bad

<comment><USER3> Maybe you are thinking of carbon nanotubes? Those have been demonstrated to cause mesothelioma

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Never mind human hair; how about antistatic brushes and dustmops? Coatings for photographic backgrounds, liners for telescope tubes, heat-absorbent building material. Anyplace a dark, weather-resistant coating is needed.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sorry for pessimism, but I have been disappointment with nearly every other graphene miracle product so far. Waiting for this one to not pan out as well. Why doesn't Popular Science just do full graphene publications since I am always equally disappointment by how many amazing things in there never pan out.</comment>


Weird bug with Hacker News CSS - <AUTHOR> https://news.ycombinator.com

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://imgur.com/ByxfC21>

</comment><comment><USER2> a protocol-relative URL to the stylesheet would be handy right about now

<http://paulirish.com/2010/the-protocol-relative-url/>

</comment><comment><USER3> THe error I get in developer tools is

SEC7111: HTTPS security is compromised by <http://ycombinator.com/images/grayarrow.gif>

SEC7111: HTTPS security is compromised by <http://ycombinator.com/images/s.gif>

etc....

<comment><USER3> nice. They just replaced the URLs. Now it is just s.gif etc.

<comment><USER4> I noticed the s.gif change (so I could update my extension) but the arrow is still showing as the link he has. I am sure it will get fixed soon enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I never thought the site was pretty but I was shocked that it could get a whole lot worse. It must have been pretty jarring if I was able to spot the immediate difference.

Really I don't mind that it isn't pretty as it serves it's purpose well and I like the feel of it as it is (with css).

</comment><comment><USER5> The css is coming from a non-secure link and is blocked by default. You can see this in like Chrome tools.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm guessing, just guessing, that HN being down was to install the security cert. Maybe had to do with that, and some minor assets still being served of of http as opposed to https which is why we are getting the errors and css problems. Should be an easy fix hopefully. Good luck HN.

</comment><comment><USER6> Things seem to be working now. news.css now loads, and grayarrow.gif is loaded insecurely but still displays.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'll try to get the rest of the images tonight, but most things should be via SSL now.

</comment><comment><USER8> seems like it was just fixed

</comment><comment><USER9> CSS is still being linked from non HTTPS location.

</comment><comment><USER3> is HN being defaulted to https now but due to some links still referring to http, we are getting these security errors ?

<comment><USER10> yup. They need to use protocol-relative URLs for the CSS files in order for it to work properly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Dude, spacer gifs? My time machine works!

</comment><comment><USER12> Verdana.

Verdana everywhere.</comment>


Ask HN: Is commercial desktop software dead? - <AUTHOR> I am currently working on a tool for marketers which is a "traditional" software application for Windows, OS X and Linux.
Checking Product Hunt, Hacker News and Reddit I have the feeling everything B2B is web based these days. Is that true?
Shall I be worried I am working on a project which is already dead before even announcing it? <comment><USER2> As an end-user, I'd rather download and use high quality desktop application than use webapp. First of all, this means no Electron/js/html webapp bundled as desktop, but a real native executable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Amen to that :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Absolutely not. As greenyoda said, there are things that web browsers just can't do, such as gain access to the file system or to certain OS APIs that aren't available in a browser. Sure, there may be a trending movement towards SaaS for a lot of apps (SaaS is super hip), but not every app can go that route.

Previous discussions on this topic:

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11748812](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11748812)

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4280463](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4280463)

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7762926](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7762926)

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5050700](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5050700)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the links! All very interesting and it's kind of reassuring to know I was not the only one worrying about this (and the general positive attitude)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If your software does something that could be done just as well in a web-based product, customers would probably prefer to have a web-based product, since it can be centrally installed and managed (even if they run it on their own servers).

However, there are still some things that can't be done with web-based products, and for those things people still use desktop software, like Photoshop. A marketing tool doesn't sound like one of these applications.

Why Linux? I wouldn't expect lots of marketing people to be using Linux on the desktop.

<comment><USER5> If you say so!

[https://www.photopea.com/](https://www.photopea.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think it depends on the topic a lot.

Desktop apps are good if you are actually making a use out of desktop capabilities.

They can also be good for low maintenance low churn apps if they don't need any servers. Because you can publish a working program and then forget about it until the next version (not babysit/monitor servers 24/7).

But if it's not making much use out of desktop, and needs servers to function then why bother with desktop anyway?

If something can easily be a web app I'd say it's the better choice. Quick safe easy access and you get to control it however you like (like pushing lots of updates every week).

</comment><comment><USER7> See this post by patio11: [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2009/09/05/desktop-aps- versus-web-a...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2009/09/05/desktop-aps-versus-web- apps/)

<comment><USER8> The point about piracy is important and is a major hidden factor here. The cloud is DRM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Personally, as a user, I much prefer desktop applications for software of any serious complexity. It's just that much better integrated into the system UI, there's no lag, and best of all: it's running on _my_ computer. (Aside from privacy concerns, I often don't have Internet available...)

For developers, though, I can see why webapps are so much nicer to work with. (See patio11's blog post quoted by drdrey.) So I would posit that the defining metric is complexity: if your software is really complex (and/or doesn't need a server), make it desktop. Otherwise, go for the web.

</comment><comment><USER10> Even in B2B / enterprise software there are still quite a few desktop applications, some for legacy reasons, some due to specific use cases.

For example, fairly recently I've come across a business application that's been implemented as a Java desktop app and deployed via Java Web Start because its main geographic target areas are - sometimes remote - locations in Southeast Asia where often you have flaky Internet connectivity at best.

Hence, deployment and occasional updates can be done online but daily use for the most part happens entirely offline.

<comment><USER11> Yup. Try getting something like solidworks running in the browser. JavaScript is not there yet by far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you know what you're doing, the UI/UX of a native desktop application can be light-years better than that of a web application. For almost any purpose.

SaaS, by contrast, is typically easier to monetize, distribute, and update; it can also be easier to build, depending on functionality and UI complexity.

<comment><AUTHOR> I might be wrong, but SaaS is a business model, not a technology or SaaS is not just web-based apps.

<comment><USER12> You're right; I should have said "web-based SaaS"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Mostly yes. The only exceptions are very high end areas like CAD and high end games that make full use of local hardware.

Everything else is going web. Even native clients are often boxed web UIs due to the cost savings of developing the UI only once.

</comment><comment> s-c-h Make it worth it for the client to install your app on his computer. For example, make it launch fast, work offline and if it makes sense, integrate it with the notification bar.

</comment><comment><USER13> I work in marketing and if a tool isn't web-based I have no interest.

</comment><comment><USER14> you can always start with a desktop version and move to a web app if things go well/there is demand.</comment>


Not Quite So Broken - <AUTHOR> https://nqsb.io/ <comment><USER2> I like the idea, but why do software types seem to be so allergic to state machines?

State machines have well-defined semantics, can be visualized nicely, implemented in a straightforward manner, and tested against specification.

The only thing that I would point out to people is that "time" is an _input_ to your state machine. That's single change makes most state machines deterministic in software.

<comment><USER3> I don't know. TCP has a nice well-defined state machine, but otherwise people don't seem to be in the habit of thinking that way. And the tools don't point people in that direction. Maybe it's associated with the UML fiasco?

I suspect a lot of things like SSL have really complicated state machines that are hard to visualise. Perhaps that should count more heavily against their design.

<comment><USER4> > TCP has a nice well-defined state machine

I can't remember where, but I recently read that the TCP state machine in e.g. the Linux kernel is significantly more complex than any you'll find in any TCP RFC

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't see any GCM ciphers nor ECDHE/DHE key exchanges deployed on this site, so forward secrecy and authenticated encryption are not implemented and supported by the Not Quite So Broken toolchain? It would be a project of great value if those are implemented, plain RSA and CBC is pretty much dead in TLS nowadays...

<comment><USER6> \- "(ECB/CBC/CCM/CTR/GCM)" -> GCM is implemented in the nocrypto library.

\- TLSv1.2 and thus GCM and DHE are supported (and default).

\- TLSv1.3 is in the works as we speak (which implies ECDHE), check back in a few months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Related talk: [https://media.ccc.de/v/31c3_-_6443_-_en_- _saal_2_-_201412271...](https://media.ccc.de/v/31c3_-_6443_-_en_- _saal_2_-_201412271245_-_trustworthy_secure_modular_operating_system_engineering_- _hannes_-_david_kaloper#t=1540)

</comment><comment><USER8> Shame this fully text site doesn't support reader mode on mobile. Is there some bookmarklet or something that people like to allow it on sites that otherwise do not support it?

<comment><USER9> Reader mode works on my iPad.

<comment><USER8> Interesting! Seems like Firefox is the one at fault here. Opening in Safari showed a reader mode option.</comment></comment></comment>


The Difference Between URLs and URIs - <AUTHOR> https://danielmiessler.com/study/url-uri/?fb_ref=0qWTTYKjCq-Hackernews <comment><USER2> From [https://url.spec.whatwg.org/#goals](https://url.spec.whatwg.org/#goals): "Standardize on the term URL. URI and IRI are just confusing. In practice a single algorithm is used for both so keeping them distinct is not helping anyone. URL also easily wins the search result popularity contest."</comment>


Ask HN: Best ways to learn what users want? - <AUTHOR>

I think understand "build" part of "build something people want" relatively well, but I don't have the second part figured out. In my particular case, my friend and I launched an online deal aggregator/notifier on the Android market a couple days ago. We built it to scratch our own itch but also as an exercise in creating a desirable product. We have 100-500 downloads, but no one has commented or rated the app in the market, or contacted us through our support blog.
I've tried surveys and direct emails in past projects and found that people often gave conflicting feature requests and the responses were difficult to make sense of. I've also found Steve Blank's customer development helpful as a framework, but what's the best way to apply that to non-enterprise projects?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> John Mullins describes a lightweight technique called the "long interview" in The New Business Road Test. I've only used this seriously once. The results of my trial provided good insights but were not as definite as I'd hoped.

Another method I heard from a startup marketing guru is that if you have a large number of users running a free or pre-release version, you should ask them, "how disappointed would you be if this product were discontinued?" You have product-market fit when a significant portion answer that they would be "very disappointed."

I've also had the impression that feature requests are not a particularly useful metric by themselves. The fact that you have conflicting feature requests probably indicates that your market is highly subsegmented. It might be useful to try to map these subsegments demographically and need-wise.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your insights. I like the "how disappointed would you be" approach since it's a question users can easily answer that conveys actionable information.

Incidentally, I just ordered the "Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development" that I found through HN, and quite a few people on here endorsed. If anyone's interested, I'll share the results of reading/applying that book.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is the site: <http://dealdealdeal.net/>

And this is the HN submission for feedback: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1713519>

</comment><comment><USER3> How are you monetizing the app? Do you have a way of seeing how much people are actually using it after downloading?

<comment><AUTHOR> We have Google analytics for the web app, as well as the unread count for each user, so we can see if they are looking at the deals or not.

As far as monetization, we were thinking of either affiliate revenue or selling the app if people were willing to pay for it, but the main goal was to see if we could make something people liked.

<comment><USER3> So, are they looking at the deals? That's important feedback.

<comment><AUTHOR> About a tenth of our registered users look at the deals.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Pamela Anderson Op-Ed: Take the Pledge – No More Indulging Porn - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/take-the-pledge-no-more-indulging-porn-1472684658 <comment><USER2> ...coming from the woman who became famous from posing nude and creating a sex (porn) tape.

Calling all porn viewers "losers" is wrong; is this the correct label for those who suffer from a porn addiction?

What about the couple who watches porn to enhance their sex lives? Are all viagra users and sex toy users losers also?

I'm all for regulating the porn industry but I cannot take her campaign seriously.

</comment><comment><USER3> No point reading the article.

An Op-Ed from the woman who won't think twice about taking off her top in public insulting those who love porn. Now that's rich!</comment>


Firefox OS Developer Preview Devices Announced - <AUTHOR> http://www.geeksphone.com

<comment><USER2> Damnit Mozilla, I want a web based mobile platform to succeed so badly and you're the company for it, but you keep killing your own fire with these repeated false starts. A 600 word blog post to announce the availability of a _holding page_? My credit card is burning a hole in my pocket! The approximate specs for the lowest end device were available on the B2G wiki for months.

Looking forward to holding this in my hand. For a few cents per unit, they might have made it even more compelling by adding dual SIM slots, certainly Chinese vendors seem to be able to manage this on <$100 Android handsets.

<comment><USER3> The developer preview is an actual phone, not a webpage.

<comment><USER4> Currently it's just a webpage, because you can't actually buy the developer preview phone yet. It _will be_ a phone, but it isn't yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No buy link, what a wasted announcement. They unveiled... a holding page.

<comment><USER6> They should have at least had a a announcement mailing list for me to enter....

While i am a Mozilla Fans, i hate to admit it is just not a well run company.

<comment><USER7> The parts that matter are quite well run but the marketing side of things could apparently use some polish. For what it's worth this is simply a dev phone announcement and not meant to be a consumer device announcement.

I am quite excited for this not because FxOS will take over android/iOS but because it will give people a trusted organization behind their private data. This has less impact on the North American market but more in other countries that tend to value privacy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm stoked that they partnered with geeksphone. I adored my geeksphone one. The pricing is what will be important here, as the low end android handsets are still lacking in the low-end market, in terms of performance anyway[0].

If they beat Androids performance, and development is easy, then it has a shot in my opinion. I mean, your basic apps are there already (such as <http://x.Facebook.com>), and if it's simple enough to port my mobile web apps over, I know I'll take the plunge.

[0] Source: I sell phones in Australia

</comment><comment><USER9> I loaded up Firefox OS on a Nexus S a few months back and the performance was really really poor compared to Android 4 running on the same hardware.

Their low end device looks similarly specced, so I'm a bit worried about how it will come off. Haven't gone through loading up the latest builds so perhaps performance has improved a lot.

Before Android 4.* (especially 4.1 and Butter) I think there was room for another competitor in the market, but I'm having a hard time believing FirefoxOS is going to be able to make significant inroads.

Android has finally grown up and contract-free low end phones are now available for $60. I would expect the 2013 ultra low end handsets will be 4.* which is really going to be a game changer.

<comment><AUTHOR> The performance of Firefox OS today on 800MHz hardware is many times better than it was on the Nexus S devices back in the day. This is partly due to hardware but mostly due to the OS maturing.

In short, today's build of Firefox OS will run very fast on these developer specifications.

<comment><USER10> Any hint on the prices?

No doubt they will be priced cheaper than the Nexus 4.

<comment><USER11> Developer preview probably means very small production run, which in turn means high unit price. Final, mass produced devices of course should be significantly cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is that an officially endorsed dev platform by Mozilla? It sure seems to imply it, but I can't see anything on the website that directly says so. I have no doubt it'll run the builds, but when you're buying a pre-launch dev platform it makes a big difference if it's the one the core devs are going to be using and be an official platform target. I'm not suggesting it isn't, but its not on the site.

<comment><USER13> Is this official enough? It's on the front page. [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/01/announcing-the-firefox- os-...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/01/announcing-the-firefox-os-developer- preview-phone/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm going to buy a device just to support their initiative. For some reason I think it might become a raspberry pi of phone segment. Everything is open source so it's possible to tweak it as much as you heart desires.

Considering specs of the lower gen phone it should cost about $100.

<comment><USER15> A $100-to-consumers, thoroughly hackable phone would be a bonanza for geeky hobbyists, feature phone users and Chinese companies selling to the developing world. Let's see if they can get prices down to where people will not think too much about how they'd rather have Android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I know Javier, the 20-yo entrepreneur behind Geeksphone - he's a brilliant mind, simply outstanding. I also know the CEO, really nice guy. They knew it was gonna be a risky move, but I think they just nailed it. Congratulations Javier and the Geeksphone staff!

</comment><comment><USER17> Aww come on! I just ordered an N9 so I could run Firefox OS (and several other phone OSes coming out this year) and now this comes out?

</comment><comment><USER18> The masses: "Should I buy an iPhone or a Galaxy?"

<comment><USER19> On the other hand it's a dev preview, not something designed to be used by high end customers.

<comment><USER20> I think the important point is that consumers don't care about Firefox OS today, and likely won't in the future, even if it ever becomes widely available.

Right now, Firefox OS is extremely far back in line. It's behind Android, iOS, various mobile versions of Windows, BlackBerry OS, Symbian, MeeGo, and several others.

If it offered something special, then there's the remote possibility that it could succeed. But it really doesn't. It's quite unremarkable, and the emphasis on using HTML5 and JavaScript for app development will likely repulse many good developers who'd prefer to use a language like C, C++, Java or Objective-C.

It just keeps looking more and more like a dead end, even as they make progress.

<comment><USER21> _the emphasis on using HTML5 and JavaScript for app development will likely repulse many good developers who'd prefer to use a language like C, C++, Java or Objective-C._

But it will attract developers who use HTML5 and Javascript, of which there are a great number.

FirefoxOS is clearly aiming itself at low-end devices in emerging markets. None of the other players have done a great job here, so yes, there is a market. We're just not in it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's too late in this generation for another serious competitor to emerge in mobile. Microsoft might be able to muscle its way into double digits but everybody else is just too late to the game now.

Better to focus on what comes after phones & tablets, whatever that is.

<comment><USER23> There is still a lot of dissatisfaction with mobile, and plenty of room for improvement. The leaders want you to marry their platform at the expense of services offered by competitors. A newcomer might make inroads just by making it easy to use various competing services out of the box.

<comment><USER22> That describes Apple well enough but Google's stuff is everywhere and best in class in most cases.

<comment><USER24> It's certainly best in class in touch parallax and mediocre usability.

<comment><USER22> Because nothing defines usability like a crap soft keyboard, broken voice search, broken inter-app sharing, tiny, static notifications, and junk stock apps, right?

Take away Gmail, Google maps, and Google search and all your iphone has left to brag about is smooth scrolling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> One thing that keeps bothering me are circular app icons. I don't know, it's different but I just disagree. That facebook logo in a ... bubble :)

<comment><USER26> It's all just CSS! A quick

      border-radius: 4px;

will bring back the rounded rectangles you know and love.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Looks like it is an ARM v7 CPU in the cheaper device (ARM v6 S1 SOC CPU cores don't go up to 1GHz), which is good to see as the baseline.

<comment><USER28> It looks like the single Scorpion core that was in the Nexus One, based on ARMv7 and a competitor to Cortex A8.

<comment><USER29> I still use a Nexus One class (HTC Desire) which seems to have specs that are on par. I want Firefox OS but why would I buy another device with the same functionality?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> There's a phrase that has been going around the usual meme-heavy sites for some time that I think would be useful here: "Shut up and take my money." Strutting around while making announcements of something people already know about, only to have those announcements lead to a holding page rather than a buying opportunity, only irritates people. Give them something they can buy, and they will.

</comment><comment><USER3> Couldn't they have done this design without ripping off the water droplet background from Apple? <http://www.geeksphone.com/#slider-peak>

<comment><USER31> The windows in my 1850s-era apartment do this automatically when it rains, so I'm guessing Apple didn't come up with this idea alone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> irony: this site looks bad on firefox for android</comment>